Thursday, October 19, 2006

Lucas got a little spun out this afternoon. He was doing this thing where he would say,’ Coram is chasing me’ and then run away. Of course, Coram would chase him then. Lucas would go off screaming that he wanted to be left alone.

I don’t think so. If you really wanted to be left alone, you wouldn’t be egging your brother on.

So we spent some time trying to calm him, and ended up separating him. I was holing Lucas, and we were having a visit, and Coram came toward us. Lucas up and kicked him.

We sent Lucas to his room for his usually 8 minutes.

Now, Steve brought home a show from work, and was telling Coram about it. The show is ‘Over The Hedge’. Lucas heard this, and begged to come out. We won’t let him come out until his minutes are up.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

That was six long weeks I tell ya. Though the waiting room seemed to take even longer.

We waited in the waiting room to be called and sent to the x-ray room. Then we waited in the x-ray waiting room. Then they called us to take us to a different x-ray room (to speed things up apparently) and we waited in that other waiting room. Then we got our x-ray and went back to the first waiting room.

When we were finally called, we were brought into a small private office where we waited another twenty minutes. We saw a resident who said everything looked great, but said we would have to wait to see the doctor.

In all it was two hours we spent there, with about 6 minutes speaking to the actual doctor.

The doctor skipped us to see a small boy who came in after us. I know he came in after us, because his mom kept complaining about how long the wait was, that their appointment was for 2:30, etc. It really bothers me that they skipped us to see them because of a complaining mother. The child wasn’t even complaining, or being noisy, or anything. He just played quietly while his mother ranted ‘I can’t sit here another half an hour!’

I mean, sure he was young, but Coram was having a MUCH harder time with the wait. When we did see the doctor, she was so obviously over-worked that I didn’t feel like I could say anything, though I really wanted to. She made an assumption based on age that my son could wait, which he couldn’t. He was dangerously close to losing it, and I was worried he might not comply when it because time to take the cast off.

However, the idea of having the cast off his hand was more exciting to Coram than worrisome, and he did comply. He sat watching detachedly while they sawed off his cast. There was gross dark yellow dead skin everywhere, but Coram was more fascinated than anything. I took him to rinse his arm off, and as soon as the water ran on him he said, ‘I need a new cast on!’ That boy doesn’t like change at ALL.

He is looking forward to going swimming on Friday with Boys and girls Club, though. In the car on the way home he pointed out that the timing is good because he won’t have to wear a plastic bag to the pool. So it didn’t take him long to get used to not having the cast on.

Me, I am just relieved I don’t have to look out for the weapon on the end of his arm anymore. That thing was fibreglass, and an accidental bonk or scratch with it would really hurt.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Lucas got the separators in his teeth today, in preparation for the expander. Fingers crossed he actually follows through. The staff at the orthodontist’s office calls them ‘seps’ but Lucas told me he doesn’t want to use that word because it sounds too much like sex. I picked him up from school, and he asked why and I said ‘for seps’ and he was extremely upset.

There were two babies at the orthodontist office with clefts. One had a unilateral and one had a bilateral. I was transported right back to those early days, sitting in the office with the Mead Johnson bottle, squeezing milk into Lucas’ mouth.

I wanted to reach out and help, but one of the moms avoided eye contact, and the other one was gone minutes after I got there. I don’t really know how to bridge the gap, so to speak. To them I am foreign – I remember quite clearly what it was like watching the moms with the older kids at cleft clinic. The older kids just seem so removed from that fragile little baby that you are preparing to hand off for the first surgery.

I can’t assume some sort of ‘sisterhood’ with other moms of cleft affected babies. Just because we have that shared experience, doesn’t mean that they want to hear from me. They may be private people, so I find myself waiting for them to speak to me.

I remember feeling that when I had infants – that those seconds when they drift to sleep are precious to watch. I had no idea then that I would feel the same way now.

In fact, I get to watch that moment so much more rarely now, that it is almost more special.

Their little faces take on a serenity that I can only call angelic (even though that’s cliché and I hate sounding cliché, it’s just true). Their mouths relax and become the soft little mouths I remember from when they were infants.

I also notice that the positions they chose to curl up into in those moments before sleep sets in are often exactly the same ones that they curled up into as infants.

It makes me wonder if it ever changes. I wonder if my own mom would see Baby Jewel juxtaposed on adult me in those moments before I drift into sleep.

There’s magic in those moments. They are a reminder of the tenderness with which I must handle these children, as they are still my babies. They are a reminder of what a gift I have in each of my children. They are a reminder of the awesomeness of being a mom.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

This week has actually gone fairly smoothly. Coram has gotten on his bus daily, and made it home on the bus. We have had a couple of meltdowns at home in the evenings, but for the most part his days have been good at school.

Except for today. Today another boy in his class decided to show his genitals to everyone. Coram decided to copy. I don’t know whether it’s really ‘fair’ that Coram got an incident report for this, since this wasn’t his idea. But I suppose he should have known better, too.

Lucas had his first visit with his councillor. I think he really liked it. He wanted me in the room, which was fine. That place is really relaxing. Every time we go there I come out feeling refreshed. I hope Lucas feels good about it too.

Lucas has started building with Lego feverishly. He saw a website with some really cool Lego Pokemons on it, and it fired his imagination. He has been building almost non stop. At night I often find him out of bed building Lego. He tells me he is going to ask Santa for ten big bins of Lego for Christmas. I don’t’ know if Santa can do ten bins – so if anyone else needs ideas, Lego is it for Lucas.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

I had a call today from Coram’s school. I gather he had been chasing another child around the gym, and refused to leave when asked to return to the classroom. The two aides in the classroom are both injured right now, so they had to get the vice principal to physically remove him from the gym and return him to the class.

They wanted me to come and take him home, but I didn’t get the message right away. By the time I called back, he had settled down. They told me to be prepared to come and get him if he refused to go on the bus.

Thankfully, Coram did get on the bus and come home, and has been in a fantastic mood today.

What I really hate is that I just can’t take a morning off – I have to be reachable at all times.

When you have a small child, say a toddler or a preschooler, parents of older children always say how much easier it will be when your child starts school. Many moms find part time jobs to work during the school hours, or they get regular time to go to the gym, or have coffee with friends. Whatever they do, they are kid-free and worry free for the school day.

With two boys 14 months apart, I was waiting for that break that would come when the kids started school. I don’t think my body ever recovered it’s strength and stamina from back to back pregnancies, back to back sleepless nights and two babies in diapers. I looked forward to some ‘me’ time while the kids were in school. I also looked forward to being able to bring in some income, and alleviate our financial woes.

With Coram, I don’t get that break. I can’t have a job, or be at the gym, or be anywhere where I’m not immediately available to recover my child from a situation that has spun out of control. I don’t know if it would be easier if people hadn’t told me how wonderful it would be. But it’s not. Wonderful, that is.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Lots of phone calls today. I had to get Lucas an appointment with his cleft team, confirm his ENT visit tomorrow, and set up orthodontic appointments for him for next week. I called to get the ball rolling on Autism funding for Lucas and called to get information about a parent workshop I heard about coming up. I also spoke with the gal at Coram’s psychologist briefly.

The good news: Lucas seems ready to put his expander in his mouth. We don’t know if it will fit, however. There is just no way we can know until we get there and give it a try. Either way, I am going to get him his gameboy back.

More good news: Coram’s psycho educational report came today. They had said they would not send it until we were finished paying, but it arrived. I am so pleased that I can get things moving now.

The bad news: We have slightly less than ¼ of our rent, that was due two days ago.

That’s the beauty of trying to pay for an assessment privately. Everything got so far behind, we were about to lose our phone and power – so I had to use the rent money to pay them off. It’s so hard to get caught up after any kind of lapse.

Coram has been doing well with both getting on his bus and behaving at school. It’s nice to have a string of positive reports coming in when he comes home.

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I am a happily married mother of 2 wonderful boys who are energetic and brilliant and keep me jumping. When they were wee babies I was isolated at home with them and turned to the internet for community. I have spent the last 5 years learning all about the highs and lows of internet marketing, and I know I have much, much more to learn. I am aspiring towards earning a full time living online.
I am also an aspiring speech therapist. I have partially completed my degree and am on parenting/stress leave/hiatus for an indefinite amount of time. I don't feel I have abandoned the goal - just set it aside for a bit.
I can be found on several internet forums with the username 'Payingforschool', which I am doing both financially and psychologically despite the fact that I am not presently attending school.
I am also active on several parenting forums, especially ones associated with cleft lip and palate, as my first son was born with both. My younger son was recently diagnosed as high-functioning Autistic, so I have set myself on a path to learn all I can about this condition.